Kten’s

That is all that I feel right now. After a year and a half of running around, enquiring with the PROs, my wife has finally received her passport.

The tall claims of the government that a passport is delivered with 45 days is pure and unadulterated bull shit. That much i am damn sure of. I had blogged about that pain earlier here.

Our passport saga goes something like this…

We had applied for her passport in Sep 07, and till Dec 07 we heard nothing. So we went to the passport office at Senapati Bapat Road, Pune every other day to find out what the status was. And every time we were told that the passport was stuck in Mumbai. For what reason, no one was able to tell us. Prior to coming to Pune, we were based in Mumbai, and as honest citizens we had mentioned that in the application form the first time around since we had not completed 1 year in Pune at that time. So i guess, the Mumbai cops were pissed that we had not ‘met’ them. Probably. Probably not.

So finally after months of wait and agonizing aniticipation, we met the PRO, who as luck would have it, seemed totally insensitive to our problems. He was very rude, to the point of being ill mannered. Needless to say, i lost my cool, and gave it back to him. After all he was not doing me a favor, he was just not doing his job properly. We closed the file, and decided to re-apply.

We submitted a new form, with fees (again a 1000 bucks) in Aug 08, and said our prayers. This time though, we had completed a year in Pune, and did not have to mention Mumbai any where on the damn form. The police verification happened after 45 days, which by the way was too damn later than promised. Anyways, once that was done, we again went on the hope train. We did not hear anything from them for the next 4 months. The passport website gave the status of our application as ‘under processing’ so that keptour hopes high. At one fine day the status changed to ‘Due to unavoidable circumstances, the despatch of the passport has been delayed, and will be delivered in a weeks time’. No dates, nothing. Just a week. This status message was there for over 2 months. our ‘week’ just did not arrive.

So finally eternally frustrated we went to meet the PRO in Jan 09. This time there was another woman, but equally if not less, rude. She made us feel as if they were doing us a great favor by issuing a passport to us. We asked her where what the problem was, and she told us that apparently after receiving the police report, nothing was done. NOTHING?? Why the heck not?? Just. We got the file out, and yes, the application had been received in Nov 08 or something, but not moved. Why the FUCK not?

So anyways, after much arguments, to and fro, she told us that the passport would come. When? In the next 15 days. 2 days later, the status on the website changed to ‘Passport has been granted and is expected to be despatched by 24-02-2009. Subject to all documents being in order’. And we were on the hope train again. Surprisingly, the passport came two days later, on Valentine’s day, when we were least expecting it. We are still too surprised to have finally received the passport after so long. But we are glad.

Oh, and by the way, the status on the website still says ‘Passport has been granted and is expected to be despatched by 24-02-2009. Subject to all documents being in order’.